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Squeeps

You are a squeep, a tiny brown morsel hatched into an unfriendly world. Extend your meager lifespan by eating potatoes (not too many at once - squeeps have sensitive stomachs!) and avoiding death by drowning. Every now and then, a predator will emerge from the Wretched Pit - they're not very bright and they don't like water, but those terrible teeth will make short work of an unwary squeep. Once you come of age, find an empty nest and lay an egg in it - if (when!) you meet an untimely end, one of your children will carry on in your stead.

Extinction is not an option - unfortunately for you, it's mandatory. As predators become more abundant and food becomes more scarce, the end of squeepkind is not a matter of "if," but "when." How long can you survive?

This is good game design. The interplay between your mechanics shows it. You have a difficulty ramp (I'm growing slower and there are more beasts as I consume potatoes), a short term goal (lay an egg), and a longer term goal (live forever through my offspring?) And, via the death of the parent, you have something of a level progression since I get to be small and fast again in this more-hostile world.

Your outer loop (survive forever) could use some more interest sprinkled in as time goes on. For example, at each new generation or so, the squeeps evolve (and so do the beasts.) After I've laid my egg, there's no reason go continue with that generation since I can't lay another. You could let me lay more eggs to get a higher stat next generation or you could just force kill me after I've laid my egg. The "don't eat potatoes too fast" mechanic didn't really add any value or interest. I'd remove it.

Cute game. Didn't feel too challenging. Your comments seemed to imply that more predators would keep coming, but I didn't get overrun after playing for a while, so I don't know if there was a difficulty ramp up in the game as it progressed or it just went very slowly.

1. All the SFX were made with my own voice modulated with Audacity. The egg cracking was made with me crunching cereal in my mouth.

2. Yes, your squeep can grow old and die. You can't DIRECTLY die by overeating, though overstuffing your squeep leaves you vulnerable by slowing you down and increasing your risk of throwing up.

3. You can actually lay at LEAST two eggs per squeep - it's just a matter of surviving long enough to do so.

4. The predator spawn rate is supposed to increase over time; conversely, the potato respawn rate is supposed to decrease. That said, eating potatoes doesn't permanently slow you down - though growing extremely old does.

The cam was a variant on a trick I picked up for implementing "Z-ordering" in Stencyl - the objects are hidden, loaded into a list, and then drawn manually using the draw "sprite" block. The rest was coordinate rotation, plus a little bit of trial and error. XD

Brilliant game design !! The conditions of life and death are excellent ! Eat, grow, survive, getting old or be wounded, and finally lay an egg to survive upon death with a new generation. I adore this idea. Bravo :)
My best survival time : 14:23 ^^

Funnily enough? I WAS planning a Squeeps game for the Evolution LD. XD Not this exact one, mind - originally I had in mind a sidescrolling platformer with an evolution mechanic. That said, I might go back to that idea sometime, and I'm definitely planning on creating an expanded version of this game with an evolution mechanic (and a way to actually win!)

Nice idea. It would be nice to have a timer that tells how much time you have till the next potato. Is the area where you can walk unlimited? I still haven't get to te right age to find the nest. Anyway i really like the concept, keep working on it.

Thanks. It was fun making those squeep noises. :3 (Trivia time: the "squeep drown" and "predator drown" noises are the same sample, just sped up/slowed down, respectively.)

The walking area is theoretically unlimited, but you'll only find potatoes, ponds, the pit, and predators (sheesh, how did I end up with such alliteration in my game?) within the borders marked by the little white rocks.

The sniff-radar will tell you where the nearest edible potato is. The respawn rate for each individual potato increases by a minute each time, so even if you dodge the predators, the game does have a hard time limit of sorts: the potatoes will eventually respawn so slowly your squeeps will inevitably starve. Though I have no idea how long that will actually take. ^_^;

Oh, I had no idea that after dying the game continues from an egg that was laid earlier! I had to read the comments to learn that. I thought the game just restarted in a loop, and that there was no score whatsoever.

Here's a tip: if the little guy is going "Squeep! Squeep! Squeep! Squeep!" instead of "Squeep...squeep...squeep...squeep...", you should probably go eat a potato or two, because he's either starving or bleeding.

A bit more transparency on the mechanics: your squeep will actually continue to take damage while he's bleeding. Multiple bites don't reset the bleed timer - they EXTEND it. So if you get ganged up on by a bunch of predators and still escape, there's a good chance you might die anyway. However, eating potatoes does restore your health, and if you're not bleeding, you'll regenerate health over time.

When I first implemented bleeding, I was planning on making it so that the predators could actually follow your trail, but I couldn't quickly think of a way to make it work properly, so I ended up removing the feature. As it just so happens, I've since come up with a nifty implementation, so whatever post-comp edition I do will probably have more dangerous predators. :3

Squeeps eventually die of old age. They start to turn gray as they get old; eventually they'll slow down, and before long, they'll simply squeep their last. I'll probably make the aging mechanic more forgiving in the future, though.

Your game and the squeeps are adorable <3 The game isn't very challenging however, but it is fun and cute.

*Squeeps*

Also, the game you were planning for the evolution theme reminded me a lot of a game a friend made for a previous LD, maybe you want to check it out: http://www.kongregate.com/games/tilman/a-d-a-p-t-i-o-n?acomplete=adaption

I'm a sucker for ecosystem games. I never did manage to lay an egg, though. Not sure what the conditions for it are. I got fat. I got old. And I got eaten. But never an egg. Nice game. I'm not sure how well it fits the theme, though.

Heh. I'll admit I was hoping my "minimalistic Atari-style graphics" would fit the bill, but that's probably too much to hope for. XD

Once your Squeep gets old enough (i.e. near maximum size), AND if you're not close to starving, the nests dotted around the map will pick up a pink heart icon. When that happens, you can lay an egg simply by touching an unoccupied nest. If you're good at surviving, you should be able to lay at least two eggs per "life."

Great audio, neat mechanic to have the world rotate around you. It did get kinda monotonous after a while, so some additional goals would be nice.... Post compo. For an LD game, remarkably complete and entertaining.

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